


Damnatio Memoriae

by BellaP3891



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bitter, Civil War Team Iron Man, Gen, Not A Fix-It, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), You Don't Mess With Tony Stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-09
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-30 01:56:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11453568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BellaP3891/pseuds/BellaP3891
Summary: Some things are worse than death.





	Damnatio Memoriae

**Author's Note:**

> All the Marvel characters don't belong to me. I'm just having a little bit of fun with them.

Rogers and Barnes were the easy ones.

Most of the paper trail they left disappeared after their supposed death in 1945 and what survived the time was being exposed in the Smithsonian. A well-placed fire, ruled as accidental, took care of that and most of the west wing of the museum. Any other records of both men were digital and these ones were so easy to erase that it wasn't even funny.

Wilson, Lang, Maximoff, Barton and Romanoff were a challenge.

All the mentioned above were born between the 70 and 90 and they led a normal life, at least the first two had, and had school records, Army records, and others things to take into consideration. Even then, with some money and effort, all disappeared too. Barton and Romanoff were erased of all spy agencies database as well.

Project Rebirth and the Howling Commandos became a legend, almost like mythology. Something that in your mind you knew that existed but also knew that it wasn't real.

After that came the internet. After all, it would be a waste of work and time if you erase all the proof of someone existence from the official and unofficial channels but there were still people out there who took pictures, filmed them, talked about them on the world wide web.

A well-placed algorithm took care of that, deleting bit by bit anything related to Team Cap.

It wasn't instantly, because that would raise suspicion, but soon enough Facebook pages, hashtags on Twitter and Instagram, posts on Tumblr and other social medias, news coverage, keywords on search engines started to disappear or stop working and soon enough people stopped looking.

The pictures and videos were hard too because they had to be erased not only from the web but from every computer, phone, tablets and others gadgets that stored them. Some had to be bought and others were stolen, but every one of them was conquered and burned to ashes. And soon, people didn't have a face to remember and a name to put on the faces they were forgetting.

The charges were dropped because the Avengers had disappeared and, hopefully, were dead or trapped in some hole on the end of the world. And because nobody had seen them anymore, nobody remembered them anymore, so why waste time and efforts hunting them?

And finally, after three years since the Civil War, life was back to what it was before and the Avengers were just a name worthy of a comic book title and nothing more.

Steve looked at his own reflection in the store window. He wasn't using a cap and sunglasses to hide from the people of New York. What was the point? They were passing by him and weren't even giving him a second glance. Across the street was the entrance to the Stark Tower, the Tower he had been observing for days, waiting for something, waiting for someone, until he appeared.

Tony looked good, he looked healthy and there were no more dark circles under his eyes and no tiredness on his face. He was wearing his usual jeans and t-shirt and was stopped by some teenagers who asked for pictures and autograph. Because people still remembered Iron Man, they still remembered Tony Stark.

Steve crossed the street and approached the group still taking pictures and with the young ones babbling a mile per second. When everything was said and done, the teenagers bid their farewell to Tony and walked away.

“Tony?” Steve called as soon as the genius attention wasn't on the leaving teenagers anymore. The man turned and big brown eyes looked at him and what Steve saw in them killed the last bit of hope he was harboring inside his fractured soul.

“Yes?” Tony asked, with no recognition showing on his face.

Steve knew it was a facade, because Tony was a wonderful actor, but he also knew that to call the other man out on his act would be fruitless. Tony, as everyone else, decided to forget them, decided to forget Steve, and this hurt like a hell.

Steve took a step back, and another, and another, putting some distance between Tony and him, but still looking at the other man's face, still hoping that seeing that Steve was getting away, Tony would drop the charade, would say that yes, that he remembered the former Captain, that not everything was lost, but that didn't happen. Until the last second, before Steve turned and left, Tony still looked at him like he had never seen the other man before.

So Steve left and went back to his nonexistent life, to his nightmares, to his ongoing pain and loneliness. He went back to wish, over and over again, that Tony had killed him in Siberia.

Because, death? Death was better than oblivion.

 

 


End file.
